I’m interested in the interaction between NLP and the assigned ICC profile when scanning negatives as positives to a TIFF. Primarily I use Nikon Scan and turn off all of the “Nikon Color Management” so that the TIFF is essentially a “raw” scan. But, of course, there needs to be an input profile to interpret that data.
My understanding is that for most software if an RGB image is opened with no assigned profile then the RGB data in it is interpreted as if it were sRGB. Essentially, I understand that sRGB was developed as a sort of “default” profile that could be used where no specific profile was specified for good interoperability between colour digital devices.
By experimentation, sRGB isn’t a great input profile for the Coolscan 9000. There’s a matrix profile buried in Nikon Scan that seems close to the “HDTV” profile which is much closer. But it also seems you can do better with a LUT although these are harder to make and manage. And a badly made one would, of course, have its distortions magnified by the extreme curves that NLP will perform on the image data.
What is NLP’s assumption on input profiles for TIFFs? Or is it more a case of “whatever Lightroom does with it”?
I’m not Nate, but FWIW, my understanding of this is that for the interpretation of colour in the conversion process, NLP uses its own profile which shows in the first row () of the panel in Lightroom. The user can change the profile as well in that drop-down. One can experiment and use what one likes best. I’m satisfied with Nate’s default profiles. None of them will give a final result out of the box, so it’s a question of what starting point one prefers.
In Lightroom, it’s more of a case of what Lightroom does with the Tiff file. My understanding is that behind the scenes, Lightroom is converting the photo to a working space called Melissa RGB, which uses the ProPhoto primaries and sRGB tone curve.
Yeah. That’s the essential part there. I know that Lightroom’s working space is this huge ProPhoto space (I didn’t realise it was customised like that though). But of course, the essential thing is you convert FROM the presumed input profile. For the camera RAW stuff they all have camera profiles built in. For the TIFF file they would take it from the ASSIGNED profile on the TIFF. And, yeah, as I understand it when you feed it a TIFF with no assigned profile it will just assume sRGB because I think that was the whole point of sRGB.
K. Good to know that NLP isn’t doing any second-guessing there. I didn’t think so. But the confirmation is nice to have.